1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to host based printers, and, more particularly, to a method of printing with a host based printer using an internal font.
2. Description of the Related Art
A host based printer is designed to allow the host system to which it is attached to do much of the data processing functions that were historically performed in the printer itself. These functions included parsing of data, font image storage, font image manipulation, along with other tasks. By moving these functions into the system to which the printer is attached, the printer may be designed to be less expensive. The savings come from reduced Read Only Memory (ROM), Random Access Memory (RAM), and processing power requirements.
A host based printer may be designed such that the printer is not capable of printing anything without the necessary software running in the host system. A problem is that the printer cannot perform stand alone printing for demonstration, printer maintenance purposes, or host system maintenance in the case that the host software cannot be loaded or for whatever reason will not function properly. Accordingly, ASCII text files such as configuration and batch files cannot be printed if the host software is not functioning.
What is needed in the art is a method of printing text in a rudimentary fashion that allows a host based printer to print printer maintenance data and system configuration files without assistance from the host, and without requiring large amounts of ROM for the storage of font data, RAM for font manipulation, or processing power for handling the font data.